Holland Redfield Makes National News; Says GOP Should Rally Against Trump

ST.  CROIX — Former local senator and current ubiquitous Virgin Islands radio talk show host, Holland Redfield, before leaving for the mainland earlier this week, told The Consortium that he would share his thoughts with members of the Republican National Committee, the body that oftentimes decides who will be the party’s next nominee. What were those thoughts? Get rid of Donald Trump.

Mr. Redfield, an RNC committeeman representing the territory’s Republican base, kept his word, which has been receiving a lot of attention on the national scene, after he provided respected US political news website, Politico, with a video that shows Mr. Redfield, during an RNC winter breakfast meeting on Thursday, chiding RNC members for allowing Donald Trump (though he never explicit mentioned Mr. Trump), to rouse the angry voices within the party, which he says pose a grave threat to the party’s chances of winning the general election and, far more consequential, miring its future direction.

“You can argue with me, but we’re almost terrorized as members of our party. ‘Shut up. Toe the line, embrace each other, and let’s go forward.’ I understand that. But there is a limit to loyalty. I am loyal to this party by speaking out on these very issues,” Mr. Redfield said in an impromptu address to party Chairman Reince Priebus at the private breakfast meeting.

“As a party, we owe it to ourselves to speak up, and not let the tail wag the dog, and not let someone say, all of a sudden, ‘If you don’t play my game, then I’m running as an independent,” he added. The talk show host said the party’s leaders have been forced to accept Mr. Trump’s political theater, no matter how damaging, and at some point, someone has to stand up to him.

And Mr. Redfield lamented “the tenor of the discussion amongst these candidates reducing our label,” and “the disrespect in many cases for ethnic minorities in the United States, but also religious factions in the United States. We have to draw the line. Because sooner or later, somebody has to pick up the pieces.”

“You’ve got a situation here,” he added, “that when someone is listening to this, either a conservative or a Democrat, or a Republican, or an independent, there are things that are said on that stage and in the media, that if your child was doing that, you’d put that child over your knee and spank them. You know it, and I know it.”

The discussion about Mr. Trump’s campaigning style and the lasting, damaging effect on the Republican Party brand, comes at a time when polls show Mr. Trump broadening his lead over his closest competitor, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, with 33 percent of likely Republican primary voters supporting Mr. Trump, while Mr. Cruz trails him in second place at 20 percent. Mr. Trump’s lead has more than doubled from a month ago, when he was beating Mr. Cruz by 27 percent to 22 percent, according to the New York Times.

It remains to be seen what effect, if any, Mr. Redfield’s remarks will have in influencing decision makers at the RNC, especially if Mr. Trump continues to dominate the polls and proceeds to win upcoming primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Mr. Redfield expressly acknowledged that Mr. Trump’s strategy — a tell-it-like-it-is style — has tapped into a well of anger within the party, those who feel disenfranchised with its direction. But allowing such rhetoric to consume a party that is hoping to win a general election with the most diverse electorate in the world, is a recipe for failure, he contended.

“You always hear the argument, ‘Well, this is what people are thinking.’ So, if this is what people are thinking in this party, as far as I’m concerned, we’re going in the wrong direction,” Mr. Redfield said.